


A Little Lonely

by BotchedExperiment



Series: LazyTown more like Hurt/Comfort Town [3]
Category: LazyTown
Genre: Blood, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Minor Injuries, what even is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 20:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9459482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BotchedExperiment/pseuds/BotchedExperiment
Summary: Sportacus starts limping away like Lassie. Robbie knows, if he was able to do his flippty stuff, he would be by now. Well, this is a sad sight.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Tbh I have no idea what I just wrote

_"AH!"_

The echoed scream wakes Robbie from a peaceful sleep. He stumbles out of his chair, yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes before he heads up to the hatch to see who in the world is disturbing him today. The kids, maybe? He is always telling them not to play around his home, but they rarely listen to him.

He pops up and sees . . .

. . . Sportaflop? What is he doing there?

The hero is on the ground by the hatch, hissing in pain. Robbie wonders what could possibly be wrong until he crawls out to get a better view. Sportacus is holding a hand to his leg, blood seeping out between his fingers. Robbie stares in shock and confusion, wondering how this happens.

Sportacus only just notices that Robbie's there.

"Robbie!" He breathes. "Why did that thing attack me?!"

Robbie follows the hero's gaze to a certain machine that he definitely should not have left outside. Oh, whoops. The machine was built to throw things, a motion sensor on the front. He could have sworn that he turned it off before he left it our here. Obviously he has some kinks to work out.

He's quick to open the panel of the machine and disable it for certain before he kneels down next to Sportacus. He watches more and more blood drip to the ground and cringes at the sight. As much as he doesn’t want to deal with this, it _is_ his fault.

Without answering his question, Robbie says, "Let me see it."

Sportacus shakes his head. "You don’t need to. I know how to-"

"Sportaloon, just let me see it!"

"Alright, alright." He removes his hand long enough for Robbie to see the deep gash in the hero's leg. It's dark, but it can be dealt with.

He swears under his breath and had Sportacus not been so preoccupied, the hero would have most definitely been horrified by the colorful language.

Sportacus immediately returns his hand to the area once Robbie gets a good look at the awful wound, using his other hand to pull a kerchief from his pocket. He presses it firmly against his leg, a groan escaping him.

The cloth is soaking up the blood quite nicely and Robbie wonders if Sportacus has done this before. Treated his own injuries, that is. He must have to, living alone in an airship, above a town that has nothing but a small family doctor's office.

"See!" Sportacus' voice it wavers a bit through the obvious surges of pain. "Told you I knew how to do it!" His smile assures Robbie that everything is fine, but everything is not.

If Robbie was another kind of man, he'd be apologizing on the spot, begging for forgiveness. He wasn’t that kind, though. It was Sportacus' fault, walking onto Robbie's property unannounced to- Well, what _was_ he planning to do?

"Why are you here, anyway?"

"Oh, uh," Sportacus gives a little chuckle. "I just wanted to come see you!"

"You wha-?"

"But now I should probably get going . . ."

Sportacus grabs onto Robbie's shoulder as the taller man stands, pulling himself up. It takes a while for Robbie to realize what he's doing. This guy thinks that he's going to walk away with a leg covered in blood.

"Where do you think you're-"

"I was midair when something," Sportacus was still leaning heavily on him as he tries to get his balance. "Hit my leg." He lets go and Robbie can't help but hover as the man wavers on his bad leg.

"Yes, I should probably get rid of the sharp stuff. I was going to load it with- Sportakook, where are you going?!"

Sportacus starts limping away like Lassie. Robbie knows, if he was able to do his flippty stuff, he would be by now. Well, this is a sad sight.

"My airship. I need to make sure I do something about this before it gets infected or something."

Robbie doesn’t like this. He's in no shape to just leave.

"You're not planning on giving yourself stitches, are you?" Robbie asks with suspicion.

Sportacus doesn’t seem sure how to answer that. "It's nothing I haven't, uh, dealt with before," He says before hobbling toward a ladder than seems to have appeared out of nowhere. There is no way even some flippy-flop hero can climb that ladder with a leg like that.

"Sportanerd!" Robbie yells. He knows that Sportacus can hear him by the way the hero pauses for a step before continuing. "Sportacus! Get back here! You can't just . . ." Wait a minute. Sportacus is ignoring him. Why is he acting so weird?

Robbie runs to him before he can even think about trying to climb to the airship. Just in time, too, as it seems that Sportacus' leg has had enough standing for the day. The hero falls right into Robbie, who's there to catch him.

Robbie gets a good look at his face as he helps Sportacus steady himself with one arm.

Tears.

Sportacus was crying.

"Whoa, uh . . ."

Sportacus doesn’t dare look up at him. His eyes are glued to the ladder in front of the two.

He sniffles, reaching up to rub his eyes and nose. "Sorry. I'm usually on my own, when I-" He hesitates. "When this happens."

'This' being injuring himself, Robbie guesses. But the thing is that he doesn’t believe the guy. If Robbie Rotten, Master of Disguise knows about anything, it's lying. And that's exactly what Sportacus is doing at this moment. He doesn’t know why, but he knows that his . . . _friend_. . . isn't being completely honest with him.

He and Sportacus aren't so different. They both live alone, had been alone for a very long time. They're both self-sufficient people. Even independent people like them need help sometimes.

"I've had my fair share of cuts as well. Let me . . ." Robbie sighs. He can't believe he's about to say this. ". . . Let me help."

\-----

Robbie manages to get him stitched up nicely, if he does say so himself.

Sportacus stays uncharacteristically quiet through the whole thing, even at times when he should be screaming out in pain. He keeps his eyes away from Robbie's. He doesn’t smile once, hasn’t since Robbie brought him back to his lair.

There's definitely something wrong.

This isn't Sportacus.

He looks up from bandaging the wound when he hears a sniffle.

These aren't tears brought from the pain, at least not completely. He doesn’t know what Sportacus is really crying about, but if it was about the pain, he would have been crying as soon as that stupid scrap metal hit him.

Ugh, Robbie's no good in these situations.

"Are you going to tell me why you're crying or am I supposed to guess?"

Foggy blue eyes meet his. A deep frown shows itself on Sportacus' face, telling Robbie that he's not one of the children.

"It hurts. That's all. You would be in pain too if-"

Robbie snorts. "Bull-"

Sportacus raises an eyebrow.

". . . Crap. I have your blood all over my hands, the least you could do is tell me the truth."

There's a long, uncomfortable pause.

"I thought we were friends, Robbie."

"I'm stitching you up, aren't I? What else am I supposed to do?"

Sportacus' eyes go back to his leg.

Oh. Sportacus blames him for this. Fair. More than fair actually.

"Okay, _fine,_ Sportadork. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have had that thing out there for anyone to see. I should have made sure it was turned off. _Completely_ turned off." Robbie never thought that he'd see the day when he'd apologize. To Sportacus, no less.

Sportacus tilts his head, brows furrowed in confusion. "You didn’t do this on purpose?"

"Wait, _what?!_ "

Robbie can't believe what he just heard. On purpose? He's done a lot of things to the dumb hero, but intentionally throwing sharp metal objects at him was definitely not one of them! Anyway, Robbie took pride in his schemes, not mindless violence.

The machine that's to blame was meant for throwing sports equipment across the town, for causing chaos, but all he could find to load it during testing was that scrap metal and now . . .

. . . Now Sportacus is smiling at him. Robbie realizes that he just said most of that out loud, probably in an incoherent mumble that only Sportacus could ever decipher.

"Of course not!" He screeches.

"Well that's a relief!" Sportacus seems to go right back to his old self again. Almost.

Robbie squints at him. He's never gone and started crying before when Robbie would do all sorts of things to capture him or drive him out of town.

"There's more." It's not a question.

Sportacus opens his mouth and looks like he's about to explain everything. Robbie's practically on the edge of his seat. Then the hero closes his mouth. "It's not important."

Robbie grumbles. "Well, I know for a fact that you don't just go around crying. So . . . "

"Alright, well, I may not have been in the best shape in the first place when I came to visit, before this happened," he gestures toward his leg, which is still resting on Robbie's lap with half-done up bandages. "I was . . . lonely."

He says the word as if it took everything he had to admit it. Robbie's heart breaks. He knows exactly what that's like.

"Sometimes I get . . . lonely," he repeats the word awkwardly. "Very lonely. And I love the children, but they can't always . . . it's nice to have adult friends. And really, you're the first person I've ever been friends with."

If this is as close to friendship as Sportacus has ever been, Robbie doesn't want to meet the people he doesn't call his friends.

"Does that happen a lot?" Robbie asks seriously.

"Yes, I suppose. I wish I was as - ah - together as the kids think I am." He looks down. "I needed a friend. Of course, it didn’t feel too great when I thought that you were going after me with sharp objects."

"Tch."

Robbie's gone through his own waves of loneliness, which were usually accompanied by fits of crying and sadness. Being alone at times like that is possibly the worst feeling in the world. He can't imagine Sportacus going through the same. It makes no sense. Everyone loves Sportacus.

"Huh," Robbie says with thought. Sportacus raises an eyebrow at him. "We have way too much in common, you know that, Sportafloop?"

Sportacus smiles. "Yes, I do."

\-----

They run into each other the next day.

The blue elf waves at him as Robbie walks past. The kids join in, a chorus of "Hey, Robbie!"s filling the air.

Sportacus' leg is still bandaged and Robbie doesn't think he should be playing around with the children in the sports field, yet there he is, leading the loudest game ever. Robbie catches the pained expression that flies across the hero's face for just a second as he runs. What a dummy, running around with that leg just so he could play with the kids.

Robbie shakes his head and finds himself a bench to nap on.

\-----

Days pass by without the two of them so much as seeing glimpses of each other. There's no reason for it, no tenseness between them. They merely have their own lives, and very different ones at that.

Robbie is engrossed in working on his machine, determined to make a stable and slightly safer version, when he hears a knock on the hatch above.

"No one's home!" He yells toward the tunnel.

"It's me," The voice echoes. Sportacus doesn't sound like his normal, bouncy self.

"Oh. You can come down, I guess." He haphazardly throws a tarp over his creation as he listens to Sportacus make his way down.

As soon as Sportacus sees Robbie, he smiles.

The villain finds himself wrapped in a lung-crushing hug. Once he gets over the shock, Robbie wraps his arms around the shorter man, resting his chin on the top of his head.

Robbie knows this feeling as well. The sudden feeling of loneliness crashing down for no reason. But now they have each other to go to. It's around this moment that Robbie realizes how much he loves the contact between them. The gentle touch that came with their newfound closeness.

Robbie clears his throat as they pull back away from each other. "How's your leg?"

"I think it's healing well!"

"Good."

Sportacus can do nothing but squawk as Robbie pulls him back into the hug.

He never wants to let go.


End file.
